BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Technical Field
The invention relates to conveyors for moving articles along a predetermined path on a moving element, and in particular to a clamp assembly for mounting an apparatus adjacent to the moving conveyor. More particularly, the invention relates to a clamp assembly easily mounted on the sidewall of the conveyor frame for supporting an apparatus above the moving conveyor.
Background Information
Various types of conveyors are used in many industries for conveying numerous articles and products along a given path on a moving belt, chain, bucket, container, or other type of mechanism which supports and moves the articles and products along the desired path. Many of these conveyors will have various types of apparatus suspended above the conveyors such as labelers, printers, spray nozzles, quality control detection devices, or other devices for acting on or viewing the material being conveyed. These apparatuses are usually supported on brackets which are attached to the outboard surface of a conveyor sidewall of the supporting frame.
One common type of support bracket is a mounting block having a dovetail shaped tenon extending outwardly therefrom which is slidably received in a complementary shaped dovetail groove or grooves extending along the sidewall or attached side plate of the conveyor. Although these dovetail connections work satisfactory for supporting the apparatus, they must be installed from the end of the grooved sidewall or plate in order for the blocks to be slid along the dovetail groove to a desired location. Thus depending upon the length of the dovetail groove and number of apparatus support clamps, this requires considerable work for changing one of the clamps for maintenance reasons or adding or subtracting clamps thereon for supporting more or different types of apparatus. Likewise, when one of the dovetail tenons is damaged or worn it requires removing all of the intervening clamps by sliding along the groove to the end for replacing the entire block containing the worn tenon.
Therefore, the need exists for an improved mounting block and clamp assembly for attachment to the sidewall of a conveyor for easily mounting apparatus adjacent to the moving articles on the conveyor.
The present invention provides a clamp assembly for a sidewall of a conveyor which includes one or two separate substantially similar blocks, each of which has a tenon extending outwardly from a clamping surface thereof, which tenon in cross section has a configuration complementary to one-half of a dovetail groove, which grooves are formed in the sidewall of the conveyor for receiving the one-half dovetail shaped tenons of the one of two blocks to provide the effect of a single dovetail tenon.
Another aspect of the invention enables the single or pair of support blocks to be installed in any desired position along the length of the conveyor sidewall without moving or adjusting any of the other existing apparatus support blocks thereon, thus reducing considerably the installation and removal time and expense, and which can be performed even during running of the conveyor.
A further aspect of the invention provides forming the block and half dove-shaped tenon, as an integral one piece member of lightweight aluminum wherein each of the pair of blocks is substantially similar or identical to each other. The blocks can be installed in pairs so that the tenons extend at opposite angles with respect to each other forming in essence a split dovetail, half the dovetail being mounted in each of the spaced dovetailed grooves in the sidewall of the conveyor. This reduces considerably the cost of making the blocks and enables the blocks to be interchangeable with each other, reducing inventory and the number of parts required for a conveyor installation.
Another feature of the invention is clamping the block against the sidewall of the conveyor either by a pair of set bolts which extend through threaded holes in the block or by clamp bolts which support the desired apparatus on the block and extend through threaded holes to clamp the block and supported apparatus on the sidewall of the conveyor.
Still another feature of invention is the ability to reverse the position of the block and tenon in the groove should one side of the tenon become worn. This enables the block to be used in an opposite position wherein the non-worn angled side of the one-half tenon is engaged with one of the angled sides of the dovetail groove thereby doubling or greatly extending the usable life of the mounting blocks.
Another advantage of the invention is that should one of the tenons of one of the blocks be completely worn on both sides of the tenon it requires replacing only one of the blocks of the pair of blocks thereby reducing maintenance and replacement costs.